Wednesday, January 17, 2007

I criticized newly elected Kansas Congresswoman Nancy Boyda for her poorly stated and, in my opinion, wrong position saying she would vote to fund Bush's escalation in Iraq, even though she apparently does not agree with it. Today, I want to applaud Boyda for joining with 38 other House freshmen in sending a letter to Ways and Mean chair Charles Rangel demanding an end to sell-out free-trade policies.

The letter restates what Public Citizen already has reported: that Democrats achieved their majority specifically because candidates ran against our current “free” trade policies, backed by both Republicans and the Wall Street/Rubin wing of the Democratic Party. There have been furious efforts by some Democrats to try to pretend that’s not the case, but this letter makes pretty clear what the reality is. Here’s a key excerpt:

“As you may know, in each of our campaigns the issue of trade and the impact of the Administration’s trade policy on working families, the environment, independent farmers and businesses in our districts were critically important. Vital to our electoral successes was our ability to take a vocal stand against the Administration’s misguided trade agenda, and offer our voters real, meaningful alternatives to the job-killing agreements, such as CAFTA, that the majority of our opponents supported.”

As you can see, this letter was signed by even the freshman that the media has tried to tout as “conservative” faux “centrists” - but what we see is that this new class of lawmakers is really a group of economic populists. See the full letter here - and get ready for the upcoming fights as the White House presses for more “free” trade pacts and ultimately reauthorization of “fast track” authority which guarantees a continuation of a trade policy that includes no labor/wage/environmental/human rights standards.